1. You cut your nose to spite your face. 2. Don't count your chickens before they've hatched. 3. Too many cooks spoil the broth. 4. Cross your bridges when you get to them. 5. Getting the short end of the stick.

I'm sorry, but I cannot guess what these proverbs are about. Could you explain them? I would really like to know, because I like proverbs and when I read them I'm trying to find the analogue in my native language.

1. Cut off your nose to spite your face. This means that you have caused yourself harm in an attempt to hurt another or demonstrate your discontent - this does not refer to real physical damage though. Often connected to sulking! Example: Jane age 13 is taken shopping by dad and want a new very short skirt. He says no but she can choose a longer one. 'Huh! Yuk! Don't bother!' says Jane and stomps off. So she ends up not getting a skirt at all just because she isn't allowed a short one.

3. Too many cooks spoil the broth. This is the punchline to a whole moral story. A collection of cooks are making soup and they all keep adding ingredients and salting it because they don't trust the others - result is disgusting soup. The moral is that if you have too many people interfering in something and trying to be in charge then it will often go wrong.

5. I don't know how this phrase came about but it means getting the poor option of what is available.

nona the brit1. Cut off your nose to spite your face. This means that you have caused yourself harm in an attempt to hurt another

I can relate to this. Sometimes when someone who did a bad deed to me apologized, I didn't forgive her even though I wanted to because that person was close to me. So instead of resetting the button, I chose to share my pain with her.